


Desert Crowns, Hometown Scandals, Rain-washed Dancers

by 0oMooncalfo0



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Deconstruction, Gen, Multi, Novelization, Past Relationship(s), Slice of Life, Stream of Consciousness, Undetermined Pairings, Unique Formatting, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-03 09:30:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0oMooncalfo0/pseuds/0oMooncalfo0
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As The Falcon cut across the skies of a newly reborn world, the army of heroes atop it could scarcely imagine all that would come afterward. They could not anticipate the adventures still awaiting them. They could not fathom the struggles of finding their new place in a peaceful world. And nor could they foresee the rush of history books that would soon be plastered with their faces. They couldn't imagine the operas that would soon be made—in the traditional language of the ancient Jidorini, of course, none of this singing in Common nonsense that Maria and the modern Jidoorans had started. </p><p>But regardless of the medium, there would scarcely be an account of the great Return of Balance that the Returners themselves ever felt was accurate enough. There were stories of their supposed heroics, but never the flaws, the failures, the uncertainty that they had seen daily as their lot. No one told the stories of the quiet moments. Some Returners' back-stories were either censored fabrications or complete lies. And most of all, no one ever told the tale from its very beginning: years before a single piece of MagiTech ever set foot on Narshe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: In the Bleak Midwinter

**Author's Note:**

> The idea behind this piece is 'not quite a novelization' of FFVI. It's based around a variety of head-canons that I'd been toying around with in my mind for some time combined with the Japanese script (translated by me) rather than Woolsey's English version, and therefore some aspects of the story not often told. Additional canonical information was taken from the Ultimania and Shonen Jump interviews (also translated by me); occasional lines may be lovingly borrowed from the game's English GBA translation. 
> 
> In terms of what sets this apart from other novelizations, the answer is simple: I've tried reading a few novelizations of the game, but have often found myself sad when the projects are eventually abandoned, often before I even get to see the author's take on half the cast. Instead, in this piece, I plan to tell the main storyline of the game, but spend an equal amount of time telling the simultaneous stories of the other Returners and what they're up to prior to their formal introduction. I also intend, in many ways, to give the main storyline a backseat, and instead weave the story of its events primarily through bouncing back and forth into flashbacks of the Returners' respective origins and through sidebar stories of their interactions with each other. Everyone knows the events of the main game; the story I want to tell is how it was driven all the while by the unique people who took on that perilous journey. 
> 
> Pairings are not planned, though the ones listed are all those that I might toy with as the story progresses and I explore interrelationships between characters. The only guaranteed pairings are Celes x Locke, and some hints of a past relationship between Terra and Kefka. All else will be molded as we go.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a pair of young women, each living in times apart, hurry across a cold and stormy night in the first leg of a grand adventure: away from the Empire, toward the world of the Espers...

# Desert Crowns, Hometown Scandals, Rain-washed Whores

(And also an amnesiac, a feral child, a train-robber, a widower, a deserter, a painter, a fuddy-duddy, a mime, a yeti, and a moogle.)

 

[The Unnamed World, After Ruin. 6:14pm, 12 June (Gemini), 1AR. High above the surface.]

 

As  _The Falcon_ cut across the skies of a newly reborn world, the army of heroes atop it could scarcely imagine all that would come afterward. The skies above them were still dark, but for the first time in a long while, there were breaks in the clouds. No one could have been more pleased. No one could have been more filled with hope. Now at least, there might be a future. True, reality would have to set in soon. True, that one break in the clouds, one oppressor destroyed does not even come close to fixing the face of a ruined world.

They would realize all of these things soon enough; celebration and folly could not last a lifetime. Eventually, they would have to descend from the heavens and walk upon the lifeless earth once again. They would each come to their challenges, and they would have to rise once more to the occasion. But all this—all these realities of normal life and how precisely they would return to it—these were not on the minds of the assembled Returners  as they shot through patches of mercifully blue skies. They could not anticipate the adventures still awaiting them. They could not fathom the struggles of finding their new place in a peaceful world.

And nor could they foresee the rush of history books that would soon be plastered with their faces.

Tales would be told, operas made—in the traditional language of the ancient  _Jidorini_ , of course, none of this singing in Common crap that Maria and the modern Jidoorans had started. Edgar himself saw to that wrinkle, though the comrade for whom he had done it would never admit his appreciation. He didn’t dare.

But regardless of the medium, there would scarcely be an account of the great Return of Balance that the Returners themselves ever felt was accurate enough. There were stories of their supposed heroics, but never the flaws, the failures, the uncertainty that they had seen daily as their lot. No one spoke of the fear, or the guilt, or the hesitance to fight again when all had seemed lost. There were a handful of the heroes whose documented backgrounds were non-existent. There were those for whom the histories told were complete fabrications. Some were more plausible than others. Some were more romanticized. Some were not even half as wild as was the truth.

But there was one thing that the warriors aboard  _The Falcon_ would always agree upon: the battle for the world had begun decades before any Esper would be found in Narshe.

“To our hometowns”, young Terra had once toasted to enemies. And this story— _their_  story—began in that self-same setting. It began in Vector. In Figaro. In Kohlingen. In Doma. In Narshe. In Mobliz. In Thamasa. In the Esper World, and even in the streets of Zozo.

…

**Prologue—In the Bleak Midwinter**

[‘ _Il Mondo di Armonia’_ , The World of Balance. 9:02pm, 20 December (Sagittarius), 966AF (22BR). East of Albrook.]

 

 

## Run.

                      Run!

 _Run_!

_RUN!_

                 The snow sparkled down from a merciless ebony sky     .           .           .

                                                                 

_Run,_

_run,_

_run!_

 

                                 It kicked up in swirls as heavy feet tore powder asunder                               .           .           .

                                                                                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                   _Run!_

_Don’t stop!_

_Never stop!_

 

The forest all around was silent. (Run!) The trees, bare and blackened, rustled and creaked in the gales.

(Run!)

 

_Run, or they’ll find you!_

 

Branches were torn. Leaves were fallen and decayed. Once-proud trunks were now frozen stumps.

Lifeless. Dead.                                                                                        (Run. Run.)

 

_Run, or they’ll catch you!_

 

The mountains had no life. Not anymore. The mountains held no mercy. Not anymore. The world had gone half-insane.

It would have to be. It  _had to be!_ It had to be a thing insane, a thing of utter madness…

…

for Albrook to have fallen.

…

_Run!                                                   Mother._

_Run!                                                                                 Father._

_Run!                                                                                                      Sisters!_

_Run!_ The world had gone crazy. . . _Brother!_

 _Run!_  For the Empire to have won. _My home!_

_Run!                                                                                                                My Family!_

_Run!                                                                                                   My country!_

_Run, run!                                                                      My homeland!_

_Burn, burn!                                         EVERYONE!_

_Burn, burn, BURN!_

_Run._

_Run!_

Run! Run! Run away!                    

Run or they’ll catch you!                                              

      Run or they’ll find you!                                                                                 

              Run or they’ll KILL you!                                                                                                                              

                                                                                               

The world could not be so cruel! The world—the World of  _Balance!_  The sweet child named  _Armonia!_

The greed… The greed of men! It could not have won! It could NOT have!

 

Her legs were not tired…

                             The cold was not biting…

                                                                            Her skin was not covered

                                                                                                     in cuts and bruises.

                                                                                                                                  And that fire…

                                                                                                                                                                                  The one that burned…              

                                                                                                                                                                         in the distance…

                                                                                                                                                That could not be Albrook.

                                                                                                                          It could not be her homeland…

                                                                                                             It could not be,

                                                                                                a place of happiness…

                                                                                                of life and joy…

                                                                                                          now sizzling…

                                                                                                                burning…

                                                                                                                         smoking…

                                                                                                                                    dying

                                                                                                                                             Like

                                                                                                                                               A

                                                                                                                                            Wick

                                                                                                                                  On a candle, now

                                                                                                                                  glowing, teeming

                                                                                                                                  with flames. With

                                                                                                                                 flames that burned

                                                                                                                                 at her, torched her,

                                                                                                                                 KILLED her ancient

                                                                                                                                spirit… and yet kept

                                                                                                                                 her alive, burning,

                                                                                                                               smoking, to stand for

                                                                                                                                another day. To fly a

                                                                                                                               new flag, in the name

                                                                                                                                of her terrible killer…

 

                                                                                                                       Albrook had fallen to the Empire.

 

The date was December the 20th, 966AF. It was the last day of the great starry warrior, Sagittarius, and, in the opinion of Madeline Branford, it was one that should forever go down in infamy. But it would not. She knew it would not. Even as she ran, even as she wept, even as she shivered and screamed in the snow that surrounded her…

She knew it would not.

The storm was quickly turning from a flurry to an absolute blizzard—just as everything, it seemed, gave inevitably to chaos. It tore at her exposed flesh with no more mercy than an imperial sword. The trees, brittle and lifeless, tugged at her clothing until it was riddled with holes. Holes. Riddled with holes. Riddled like the villagers who had stood down the gunmen. Holes, through which more wind could freeze her. The girl struggled. She fell. And the snow, hardened into unforgiving ice, yielded no comfort but to bruise her frozen face, to soak her to the bone.

Last night, she had been sitting around the fireplace in her family’s cottage. Last night, she had been surrounded by her mother and father, her brother, her sisters. They had laughed and drank and made merry. They had celebrated the change in seasons, the Long Night, that was this darkened eve. The birth of winter. The cusp of Capricorn. It was meant to be a joyous time in the humble fishing village of Albrook. A night of singing silly songs and toasting life whilst each man and woman cuddled under blankets against the December chill.

No one had listened to the news reports as they had prattled across the radio system.

No one listened to the warnings about Imperial ambitions, troops mounting for attack.

No one listened. No one ever did. The news had been the same for over a decade, and never had it come to fruition…

…until now.

Fingers numb from the freezing weather, Madeline untangled her skirts from sprawled limps. She trembled as slurry tipped down the front of her blouse. Its icy hand glided down tender skin, making her shiver in a way that was only half to do with cold. Driven by gravity, ice water leaked into crevices that not even metaphorical fingers should touch… Trembling like a leaf, the young woman pulled herself to her feet, sodden skirt sloshing after her. Her breath came out in ragged pants, its waning warmth staining the air less and less with every leg she ran. Eyes glazed half from cold, half in shock, stared dismally at the bleak surround.

She was lost.

Lost in a snowstorm in the unforgiving wilderness. Lost cold and dripping wet both inside and out. How much longer could she endure out here, Madeline wondered vaguely as she blinked stray snow out of her eyes. Surely not long. Already her limbs were becoming stiff, her fingers fading from red and inflamed to violet and immovable. Already, she felt her vision starting to slur… or was that the storm? In the end, it didn’t matter.

She was lost. She would soon become yet another corpse to lie with the lifeless trees of the Eastern Mountains. She didn’t care. That was still a better fate than what would surely have awaited her at home. Home. Back in Albrook. Albrook, the humble fishing town that had now been thoroughly captured by the Gestahlian Empire. By Vector. How many, she wondered, lay dead on the streets? How many drafted against their will? Were her sisters still alive? Were they contending with the groping of cold, Imperial hands—hands that were more than metaphor?

 

(How many coastal maidens would be carrying invaders’ bastards, come next harvest?)

(How many, in shame, would rather jump off the pier?)

 

Yes… death would be a welcome alternative…

 

There was nothing left in this world. Nothing at all. Coal. Money. Power. These were king now, in the world of men. Where spells and sorcery had once been the objects of greed and conquest, they had now found their equivalent in the centuries after the War of the Magi.

Madeline believed in the tales of the Great War. She had seen it with her own eyes: the incredible greed of men, the thirst for power. If there was a force of might on this planet, she was sure the wicked foes would seek it. Magic. Coal. What was one force over another? Was it any harder to believe that mages had once reigned in place of steam and electricity?

It certainly was no harder to believe that human beings could have corrupted it,

Used it for wicked causes,

Had it taken away.

No, Madeline had no doubts that magic and its ancient war were as real as this blizzard. As real as the imperial troops that had marched on her town.

 

There was no hope left in this world.

 

Madeline stumbled, unaware of whenever she had begun moving again. Her feet had apparently taken charge without her consent.

 

No hope. No reason.

Humankind had been given a second chance, one without magic…

 

They carried her through repeating patterns of swirling winds and broken trees. No chance of escape. No change in the scenery. There was nothing out here… no one to save her.

 

And look here what they had done with it.

Once again, greed had prevailed.

Coal had replaced magic. And men? Men had never changed.

 

Suddenly, the winds changed. Shaking, trembling, Madeline felt her bare feet strike hard stone beneath the coating of slurry.

 

No hope… for  _this_  world…

 

It was a cave. Long and dark and mysterious, but it  _was_  a cave. It was shelter. Shelter from the storm…Blinded by the hours in the snow, hardly knowing where she was going, Madeline stumbled across the threshold. Her fingers, numb and graceless, slided and stumbled along the rocky wall.

She knew not where this cave was. She had never heard of anyone or anything going so deeply into the mountains. Likely, it was the lair of some horrible monster.

But it was covered, and it was strangely warm—so warm that the humid air all but stung at her wind-swept skin. There was a gentle breeze blowing from somewhere deep within that smelled neither of the winter nor the death that lurked in the world outside.  Whatever fate awaited the young woman here, it could not be worse than the one she had left.

And so, weak, half frozen, broken and beaten and blind, Madeline Branford of Albrook wandered into a cave deep in the mountainous coast of the southern continent.

And therein, she left her world forever…

…

[‘ _Il Mondo di Armonia’_ , 5:00 pm, 9 January (Capricorn), 999AF (1BR). The Northern Mountains of the Eastern Continent.]

 

                     [March.]

                                                                                                                                                                                                    [March.]                                                               

                                                                                         [March.]                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                       [March.]                       

                                         [March.]                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                                           [March.]                                                                                                                                                                                                    [March.]

                 

The winds tore and buffeted over the sleepy mining town of Narshé. Snow tumbled gracelessly from a sparkling, starry sky. Storms were not an oddity here, in the northern nation. Neither was the cold. Both were but a daily feature in the lives of the townsfolk. Nothing strange. Business as usual. Certainly, there would have been nothing in the eve to suggest that incredible things were about to be set in motion.

 

                                                 [The ants go marching three by three!]

                                  [Hoorah!]                                                                               [Hoorah!]

 

The heavy clank of metal on stone was the only sound to break up the monotony of the quiet night. An enormous mechanical boot slammed down amidst the ice and rock of a sturdy cliff face. Its unnatural call shocked the air like sudden gunfire, and sent migratory birds dashing back into the skies. A moment later followed its mate: equally as large and merciless upon the ground. The feet belonged to a massive metal monstrosity, some ten feet high, atop which a chilly-looking operator shivered in the cold.  He glanced impatiently over his shoulder, back towards the steep ascent that marked his rear. The cacophony of more clanking boots resounded up the hillside.

 

[The ants go marching three by three!]

                                                                                                            [Hoorah!]       

                         [Hoorah!]    

 

With a boom of metal and a flare of steamy exhaust, a second mechanization pulled up over the crest of the hill. In short order, it strode across the barren landscape to stand beside its partner. The pilot huddled within his high control seat was thinner and lankier than his fellow. He wore a long, obnoxious scarf beneath his army-issue brown helmet, though it was apparently doing little to protect him against the ravishing cold.

 

                                      [The ants go marching]

                                                                                   [three]

                                                        [by]

                                                                                                     [three…]

 

“Shiva’s  _teats!_ ” the trooper swore, momentarily releasing his controls to rub frigidly at his arms. “Why in the seven hells did command have to send us somewhere so bloody  _cold?_  And in the dead of winter, no less!” To illustrate his point, the soldier puffed hot air needlessly on his leather gloves; with an exaggerated shiver, he rubbed them together as if to generate some impossible friction. His companion, stouter, tougher, wearing a uniform bedecked with additional bars, merely rolled his eyes.

 

                                                                                                 [They’re bringing a present]

                                                        [home]                                                                                                [to]

                                                                                                              [me!]

 

“We’re here because we were ordered to be,” the first soldier replied curtly, turning back away from the second to eye the horizon once more. Whimpering one final time, his partner clanged over to join him, peering out towards the flickering lights of the city beyond.

“So, that’s the city-state of Narshé?”

 

                                                 [And they]                                                                                                              

                                                                              [all]                                                                                

                                                                                                     [go]

                                                                                                                         [marching]

 

Neither man paid the slightest bit of attention to the continued clanging of a third armour suit pulling up the cliff side behind them.

When the trooper received no immediate answer, he glanced sideways at his commanding officer. “Hellooo! Vector to Biggs!” he whined softly.

The other, Biggs, merely grunted. “A thousand years gone by…” he muttered gruffly, eyes unreadable beneath the visor of his helm; he had not once turned away from the silhouette of their distantly glittering destination. “And some Esper from the War of the Magi’s up there, frozen in the ice.”

His subordinate turned back towards the far-off town, blinking in what may have been awe. This hands stopped their incessant rubbing for a fleeting moment, as if the biting cold had been forgotten. “Then…. It’s not just more propaganda?” he whispered to the night. To his right, Biggs let out a stupendous snort.

 

                                                                            [down]

                                     [on the heads]

                                                                                                 [of the Narshen swine!]

 

“They let us use  _her_ , didn’t they?” he retorted dryly. As he spoke, he jerked a thumb back over his shoulder, indicating the third suit of MagiTech armour that had just creaked up the hill to join them.

If the first two mechanisms had been intimidating, this last was Ifrit’s hellfire incarnate! Looming over a meter above the others, it was bedecked on all sides by wide, black guns and strange, poking protrusions. Missile silos flanked, beneath a mockery of wings. A few of the attachments still glowed faintly, as if in warning. Beneath the beast’s monstrous metal head, a deep mouth hung open, waiting to bombard its enemies with a beam of concentrated death.

 

[Terra!]

 

Atop the blackened façade sat not another brown-clad soldier, but a young girl. Hair of a strange, minty-green hair floated past her sightless eyes.

 

                                                [Terra!]

 

The younger trooper shuddered in his pilot seat. It earned him a chuckle and a light punch to the shoulder as his commander rode away from the cliff edge and towards the mysterious woman. “They must have gotten some pretty solid intell’ this time,” he laughed without joy, leaning forward on his armour until he and their third teammate were nearly nose to nose. She made no sign of acknowledgement. She did not so much as flinch.

 

                                   [Terra!]                                                                                   [Terra!]

                                                                    [Tiny Ter-ter!]

 

The second soldier stayed where he was, content to keep the distance between himself and their new arrival. “The girl who was actually  _born_  with magic…” he uttered softly, shaking in his boots. “The one who supposedly took out fifty MagiTech-mounted troops in three minutes flat… pretty scary stuff…”

 

[Keffy’s little Terr-or!]

 

Biggs ignored his companion, laughing again brutishly. He waved one of his flame cannons back and forth in front of the girl’s face, eliciting a startle from the hovering rookie, but little else. “Relax, Wedge,” he hissed back towards the trembling trooper. With the edge of his gun, he flicked at a narrow rim of metal that was sucked tightly to the woman’s brow-line. She swayed slightly from the contact, but made no move to withdraw. “This thing on her head should knock out any ideas about ‘independent thought’, ‘individual will’. She’ll do anything we tell her to.” 

 

                                                                                             [What’s wrong, Scary Terr-y?]

                                                     [Cat got your tongue?]

 

Without another word, Biggs turned away from both his party and the view. The air was lit up once more with jarring clang-clang-clangs as wide metal feet began to walk away across the icy expanse that led beyond. The wind carried his final commands in his wake: “We’ll circle around from the east. Move out!”

 

                                                                                                                  [Aww, icle Terra!]

                                                                       [We never talk these days!]                                                                               [Why is that?]

                                                                                                                                                                  [I know!]

                         [Maybe you need to get out more!]

 

For a moment in time, the younger soldier, Wedge, hovered. His hands ghosted unconsciously over his controls. With one eye, he watched Biggs take off into the distance, armour creaking with cold and strain. With the other, he watched the mysterious woman atop the advanced model. He stared at her out of the corner of his vision, waiting for something—anything! For some sign of recognition… of rebellion to his superior’s absolute assessment. When she continued to stand unchanged, immobile, he at last turned and followed his friend.

 

[Oh, wait!]

                                                          [You’re out right NOW!]

                          [Whee hee hee!]

                                                                                                                                [Poor Tiny Terra!]

[Out in the cold]                                                           [and the wet]                                                                                                           [and the muck!]

                                                      [If you want to come home, just say so!]

 

The third metal monstrosity hung back for a second longer. Its rider stared unwaveringly forward, eyes as blank as the mind that lay behind them. A mind through which a madman was laughing from half a world away. A mind too drained to even comprehend him.

 

                                                           [Come on, Terra!]

                         [Just say the word]                                                                                            [And you can come home!]

                                                                                                [We can go dancing!]

                                                                                                                                                    [It’ll be such fun!]

                                       […All you have to do is talk!]

                                                                                                                [Hee hee!]

 

The wind and storm buffeted at the sorceress’ exposed face. Tiny crystals of snow struck unnaturally-warm skin and melted like a summer rain. As they rolled down her cheeks… they almost looked like tears.

 

But they weren’t tears.

Dollies didn’t cry.

 

Numb hands gripped at the controls to the MagiTech armour. With a whoosh of steam, both girl and mount had dashed off after the retreating soldiers, madman cackling in her empty head all the while.

…

             …

                            …

                                    And when they met the Narshé Guard, Kefka cackled on.

                                                   …

                                                     And when bodies lined the streets, Kefka cackled on.

                                                                      …

                                                                               And when Ymir fell, Kefka cackled on.

                                                                                                       …

 

And when Biggs and Wedge disintegrated on spot,

And when Terra felt her tethers shatter,

And when all Narshé lit up with white light…

 

 

There was only silence.

 

Terra rested, and dreamt.

…

 [‘ _Il Mondo di Armonia’_ , 6:22 pm, 9 January (Capricorn), 999AF (1BR). Imperial Palace, Vector.]

As the halls of the metal fortress exploded with a wail of ear-splitting rage, the unfortunate guards on duty lamented the sound-carrying power of steel. Not ten minutes later, they each left their discomfort behind and leapt to attention as the Empire’s floridly-dressed First Mage stomped past towards the throne room. From the sounds of his explosive whining, his new toy had just broken. 

* * *

 


	2. Prologue II: Threads of Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an Esper in rain-washed Zozo seeks those who are destined to save the world... Unfortunately, the universe is stingy with its data.

** Prologue, Part II—How the World was Made… **

Chapter 1, Threads of Fate

 

[‘ _Il Mondo di Armonia’_. 12:00am, 1 January (Capricorn), 983AF (16BR). A rain-washed town.]

The hands of fate wrote themselves slowly, like yarn being knitted into a great scarf. The end goal was preferably decided, but as to which individual strands would intersect and where…. Well, that was a thing to be decided only upon the spur of the moment. Divination was fickle in that way. It was not a mere book to be laid out and read.

Fortunately, Ramuh knew well how to knit the strands of fate.

As the glow of arcane magic etched itself in circles across the darkened floor, a thin, stooped figure stood at the centre, chanting. Predicting. The world of _Armonia_ was spiralling towards destruction, and the yarn that would weave into its salvation could not be left to mere chance. His metaphorical strands… he could not take the risk that they would fail, that they would not come together—or, perhaps, that the thing they would come together as would be a hat or some mittens. Not a scarf, at any rate. Not the _salvation_ that he so desired—yea, that the entire **_world_** desired!

…

 …+…            

\+ …………+………… +……      

+…          Swirls of magic                  …

                           …            Spiralled about.           +…

                                              +…          They swept the dust         …+…

                                                  …            From the floor,                 …

                                        …            And left markings             …+

            +…          of strange           …

…            languages            …+

 …+…       in their wake.     …                       

+…………+…………                   

……………

…

 …+…

**Hocus!**

**Pocus!                                    filiokus!**

**Abra-**                       Nitwit! Blubber!                   **-cadabra!**

 **Alakazam!**                    Oddment! Tweak!                    **Bippity!**     

**Boppity!                                             Boo!**

**_Iftah ya_ ** **_simsim_ ** **_!_ **

…

A bolt of lightning flashed!

The symbols in the dust fluttered!

An old man’s eyes flickered wide with sudden understanding!

                              …

 

 **Twelve**.

That was the magic number.

 **Twelve** months in the year. **Twelve** hours on the clock.

 **Twelve** moons that rise and fall.

 **Twelve ** signs of the zodiac.

 

 **Twelve ** champions who could save the world, and **twelve ** great cultures out of which they would arise.

 

The skies over Zozo suddenly exploded with thunder so pronounced that it shook the very foundations of the rusted old inn. The Esper Ramuh, however, did not so much as flinch as his bedroom window rattled in its frame. Lightning was of no bother to him. He had never cared much for the weather in the first place, and at the moment, he had much more pressing matters about which to worry. Running a shaky hand through his hair, the old man sighed and plopped down upon the bed. A wrinkled brow was furrowed, mind lost both to thought and to a mild anxiety that prickled along the sorcerer’s spine. Luxurious beard and voluminous robes fluttered about his feet as with a wind that should not have existed. The former of these, Ramuh stroked nervously as he pondered.  

Twelve was it, then? _Twelve_ champions? Trinity’s _teeth_! Could They not have made things a bit simpler? Not only such an assembly of heroes to be gathered, but from all twelve major states of the modern world, no less! Mercy, this was to be no easy task… Truly, did it take such lengths to save _Armonia_ from her otherwise inevitable destruction?

Ramuh knew not precisely to whom he was directing these questions, for the only three deities of his close acquaintance—the dark Trinity of his swearing—had frozen themselves in stone many centuries before this day. Indeed, before the War of the Magi itself.

 

Argh!

By Goddess’ Great, **Jiggling** **Bossom**!

If there _were_ gods to be hearing him, then there would be no need to save the planet in the first place!

 

In defeat, Ramuh sighed again and let his moment of anger pass. He let his tense muscles slump and stiff joints pop. Holding his head gloomily in his hands, he thought over the visions he had seen and what wisdom that his divination had so kindly ushered onto him. He had to memorize it all now before even this small, dismal gem of future knowledge slipped through his fingers like grains of sand. He had to remember of these twelve champions (what little he had learned of them) if he was to have any chance in meeting them at all.

 

Twelve.

Twelve strong men and women would be chosen.

 Twelve, diverse both in their blood and in their talents, would rise to save the world from its doom:

…

From the (1 & 2) deserts of **Figaro** , two royal brothers, and from their (3) region of **Kohlingen** , a roguish adventurer.

(4) From **Doma** ’s turrets, a shining knight, (5) from her port at **Nikeah** , a boy left to the wilds, and (6) from the colony of **Mobliz** , a man running from his past.

From the (7) mines of **Narshe ** would rise a powerful moogle, and from (8) the dens of the **Empire ** would come a disenchanted general.

From the shrouded town of **Thamasa** , two Magi-spawn (9) young and (10) old.

(11)

From the **Esper World** , there would be a little girl who could spark all these things into motion.

…

And, as for the twelfth, well…

 

Releasing his beard, Ramuh glanced out the window towards streets half obscured in the pouring rain.

As for the twelfth, that little bastard would be born right here in this hell hole of a town. Right here, under Ramuh’s nose. Indeed, if the old man was to contact one of the dozen, the local boy would seem like the wise choice. And it was imperative that he impart his wisdom—the truth of their fates!—to one of the twelve chosen. After all, how else would these children ever be brought together? Did he dare trust such matters to fate alone? This was the _world_ at stake! Two worlds, perhaps! But could Ramuh even _find_ a child of destiny here in this city of killers and thieves?

Unlikely. To outsiders, the Zozoni always lie. And, as a man clearly older than the tender age of 40, there was no way the aged Esper could hope to pass for anything less. People didn’t live that long in Zozo. Her champion, then would have to be fairly young at the time of Ruin. Certainly no more than middle-aged. Was he even yet born? Perhaps, though perhaps not, for the old sorcerer knew nothing of his saviours’ faces. Alas, the universe had provided him only with the most basic of descriptions, and physical appearance was not even among them.

But, if not the Zozoni boy, who, then?

He thought of the Esper girl. She would be apparent enough, for her birth was unique and thus so was her very being. He had seen her captured along with himself and their kin… There was no doubt, therefore, that she must still be in Vector. Likely, she was still at the Imperial Palace. And with her startlingly green hair, she would not be difficult to find amidst the sea of blonde that formed the Imperial ranks. He could find her. It would be easy—easier, he imagined than it would be to find any of the others.

But if he did choose to contact her, what would he do? Terra was but a child—a toddler! Could he contact her mind, tell her of things here, from a safe distance. Well, of course he could, but to what end? It would be years before she could understand him, and by then his voice of rebellion would be fighting against the competing indoctrination of her Imperial schooling. He could make a mad dash to Vector, but what then? Would he attempt a rescue? But even if he could manage such a feat, could he care for a young orphaned girl? And if he could make such an attempt for her, how could he turn his back so easily on his other countrymen in their tubes?

No, he had not the means to rescue Terra. If he did, then he would be here right now discussing this problem with Maudin and would likely have solved the matter with very little trouble.

He could attempt to break into the Imperial capital later. In a few years, perhaps? He could sacrifice his own freedom to warn her. But this too seemed a poor idea. Even if he showed himself to the girl in person, he would still be fighting against all she had ever been taught. And, even if he did get through… Ramuh remembered the rush of power that struck him the moment he crossed over into this world from his homeland. If the girl gave in to her Esper roots, there would be no one to guide her out of the madness.

He could not reach out to Terra either, then.

The other Imperial girl, the General, was out for the same reasons, of course. She was young now, and was equally unreachable. He knew not if an artificial Magi could hear the words of an Esper in her mind, but nor was he fool enough to risk it. Not when there was nine others to consider…

The Figaroni Princes posed a similar problem. On the one hand, Ramuh knew precisely where to look for the boys. On the other hand, however, getting to them would be next to impossible. With no Esper powers and only a shred of ancient Magi blood in them, the old sorcerer would not be able to contact them telepathically. And as the closely-guarded princes of a nation all but at war with the Empire…

It would be an ill-advised attempt.

Of the Doman Knight, the Kohlingish Rebel, The Nikean Wild Child, and the Moblian Outlaw, he knew relatively little. To find his champions would both require sneaking into the territories unnoticed and establishing an entirely new life just to begin his search. There were few places as unconcerned as Zozo, where one could simply slip in with no past and no documentation. Going anywhere else would be an undertaking of a massive scale. And then, even if he did succeed to that end, the aged Esper would be left with entire colonies to search and no knowledge of his queries. Indeed, he had no knowledge even if any of these children had yet been born!

 It would be the Zozo problem all over again. Alas.

Ramuh knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could not yet contact the young Magi-spawn girl of Thamasa, for she certainly was not yet more than an idea within her parents’ heads. The elder one however…

Ramuh thought for a moment, twirling a strand of beard about his finger.

He could try to contact the elder Magi-born, the Blue Mage. As the descendent of the Magi of old, it would be possible to make the telepathic link—and he would have to if the things he had heard of Thamasan secrecy were to be believed. There, he certainly would not be able to blend in or claim the tourist. But though the convenience of Thamasan blood tempted Ramuh, it also dissuaded him. For, enticing though it was to be able to speak remotely, he would have no greater luck finding hid target among all the men of that city than he would of finding any other of the twelve. And were he to guess incorrectly—to contact the mind of the wrong individual—then he would be revealed. And that could be the most potentially disastrous thought of them all.

That left only one.

For what felt like the thousandth time that evening, the old man sighed. As lightning flashed out the window and thunder shook at his ceiling, the lord of electricity collapsed backwards onto his bed and stared bleakly into the abyss above.

He would have to contact the Moogle.

There were many powers in this world other than magic—this Ramuh knew well. There were forces of nature that preceded the rise of magic, and they would remain long after it was gone. The monsters that roamed the land lashed out with a power that was not quite magic, and so too did the ancient dragons of yore…

_‘In the mines of Narshé, Moogle will be born with draconic blessing, lance in his hands and burning fire in his soul. He will speak the language of men, and with his ritual dance, he will command the wrath of the planet herself…’_

A Geomancer.

That was what they used the people used to call them, back in the day—at least if Ramuh was not mistaken. That was what they used to call those who could command the natural forces before the rise of Espers and their magic. The Moogle would be able to hear the telepathic call, but only he among all his kin. It would be as simple as reaching out to the entire colony up there, in the mines, until the old sorcerer found one that could answer.

Yes. It would have to be this way.

Ramuh would contact Mog, and when the time came, Mog would be his chosen. His other comrades—Cait Sith, Kirin, and Siren, Triad guard their souls—would have to find their own soul mates among the eleven that remained.

Ah, so much left to chance! But there was no other way.

For this was not a story of one hero. It was a story of twelve heroes. Twelve heroes, the chosen allies of twenty-four Espers. It was a tale of twelve stories that, like the threads of a scarf, would be woven together into a single purpose. And in the end it would lead not only to the completion of them all, but maybe… just _perhaps_ …The salvation of their world.

 

And it would all begin

The night the Empire attacked

The frozen Esper in Narshe. 

 

.........................................................

Author’s Note:

I plan to do the world building slowly, but I also realize I’ll throwing out a lot of nationalities (adjectival forms of the city names, essentially) and I know they’re not rendered in the same fashion that other fans have done in many cases. I don’t want anyone to get confused. So I’m throwing out a quick guide here for future reference:

 

 ** Nation ** /City/ _Colony_                                                                       Nationality______________________________

 **Figaro**                         Called Figaroni by natives (including Kohlingen) and the people of Zozo. Mislabeled as ‘Figaran’ by everyone else.

Kohlingen                   Kohlingish (from the old ‘Kohlingicsh’)

 **The Empire**               Imperial

Vector                         Vectorian

 _Maranda_                      Marandan

 _Albrook_                        Alban

 _Tzen_                              Tzeni

 **Narshé**                       Narshean

 **Jidoor**                            Jidooran; when talking about the ancestral people of Jidoor/ _Jidore_ (ie the modern people of Zozo or their ancestors), it would be _Jidorini._

 **Zozo**                              Zozoni to natives and the people of Figaro, occasionally mislabeled ‘Zozoan’ by the ignorant

 **Doma**                             Doman

 _Mobliz_                             Moblian

 _Nikeah_                             Nikean

 **Cesarea** (ancient)         Cesarean

 **Gothica** (ancient)          Goth

 

Additional note: It was brought to my attention that, due to an error in the way the town's name was saved in my autocorrect's dictionary (ie there was a typo), Mobliz was being misspelled. This has been noted and corrected. 


	3. Prologue II: The Desert Crowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world called Armonia is one of loss and violence, built on the tephra of the ruined civilizations that proceed it. Christiel Figaro knows that well; so do her unfortunate sons.

** Prologue, Part II—How the World was Made… **

Chapter 2, The Desert Crowns

 

_O nce upon a time, there was a pretty blue planet. _

_T he planet had a name. It was a pretty name. Pretty like the blue water. Pretty like the lush forests. Pretty like the golden desert. It had a name, but no one remembers it. That’s because of what happened thereafter. _

_T he planet was full of all kinds of people: tall ones, short ones, fat and thin, light and dark beneath the shining sun. The ancient people worshiped the land and lived in harmony. As animals themselves, they made commune with the natural world around them and wielded its forces like extensions of themselves. With song and dance, they made the earth rise into shelter and the skies bring them rain; they gave praise to their sacred mother. The pretty planet liked being worshiped, and that is why one day it chose to give its beloved children a gift. With a swirl of light, not unlike a dance, it breathed life into the cold earth. Out of the rubble rose eight divine beings with skin that glittered like gemstones and size so great as to fill a valley. Each was an incarnation of the raw forces of nature. Each was a font of the planet herself:_

The **red** dragon, lord of fire. The **blue ** dragon, sovereign of seas. The **golden ** dragon, lightning’s flash. The ice dragon, king of frost. The **storm ** dragon, wielder of weather. The **earth ** dragon, ruler of rubble. The **bone ** dragon, guardian of the dead. The **holy ** dragon, heaven’s light.

_T he dragons of yore commanded the land on a scale that living beings could not; they banished chaos and established order. Churning oceans calmed. Volcanoes cooled. The ground trembled less and less underfoot. Burning deserts lessened their rage. Diseases dwindled and vicious storms claimed fewer. _

_C enturies passed. The population developed and prospered in harmony with their surround. All was natural. All was in order. All was well on the pretty blue planet… _

But then,

one day,

** calamity fell. **

…

The world was lush and fruitful, a varied landscape beneath a crystal blue sky.

 

_“…the weekend forecast, citizens of the coastal regions can expect continuing high temperatures through Saturday and Sunday as fronts slowly make their way across the desert._

They called her _Armonia_. Balance. Harmony.

 

_“Meanwhile, fortunate folks in the west may see a slight chance of storms Monday morning that could finally bring some much-needed relief from…”_

Once, in the ancient past, the planet had borne another name, exotic and beautiful. But, like all things from the ancient past, it had long been lost to the sands of time.

 

_“…While non-stop showers, of course, continue to rain over the mountainous regions northwest of Jidoor.”_

The people had named this year the 972nd After the Fall. Almost a thousand years since the whole diversity of lifewas supposedly changed forever in the legendary War of the Magi. No record or song or shred memory could recall the world prior to that ancient conflict.

The War of the Magi… The Great War… Many had dismissed it as nothing more than an old fairy tale—a folk story about how the planet was borne. And yet……

 

_“In international news, the situation in the South continues to be disconcerting, as on-scene and domestic reports alike indicate a recent spike in military funding…”_

It had been over seven centuries now since the World Peace Conference, which had christened the newborn world in the name of Balance. Vector had started that conference, though it hadn’t been called ‘Vector’ just yet. They had said they wanted to prevent a second War of the Magi…

 

_“Though the Vectorian Council refutes any such claims of aggression, estimates indicate that the increased government support…”_

 

Seven centuries. Seven hundred years since the legendary Espers had been declared extinct. Now only statues to their honour remained, scattered about the world. Only the truly religious even bothered to visit.

 

_“…and may see the Imperial Guard doubled or even tripled by the end of the year. As for what could have prompted this undertaking…”_

 

It had been nearly two centuries since what historians now called the Renaissance: a period of great industrial and artistic advancement. Two. Two centuries. Two hundred years of peace and so-called prosperity. Two hundred years since magic had supposedly been taken away from the greed of man.

 

_“Local sources point towards an increase in wandering monster attacks as the cause of this massive undertaking…”_

 

Where legends told of great societies run on magical power, coal and steam were now king. Seven centuries since the Great War. Two since men of ‘peace’ had declared Espers extinct. Five decades since the likes of ‘electricity’ had been experimented with in their stead.

 

_“…Indeed, it seems to be true that new and ever stranger creatures have been appearing across the continent at an alarming rate…”_

Seven. Two. Five. Among them, it was the two that kept recurring. Two. Two centuries. Two centuries since the discovery of the southern coal vein that made the fortunes of Vector…

 

_“…Our eyes and ears to the south, however, indicate that there may be more to this situation than…”_

 

Two centuries of the northern mines that had founded Narshé out of chaos. Two centuries since the coal trade impoverished and destroyed the people of ancient _Jidore_. Two. Two. Two. Those were the oldest records available in Figaro.

 

_“At any rate, it appears that the situation in the south, however ominous, is stable for the moment. In other news, relations between Vector and Narshé…”_

 

Narshé. Figaro. Vector. Maranda. Tzen. Albrook. Jidoor. Only the far eastern Kingdom of Doma was old enough to remember a time when things might have been different.

 

_“…and the situation promises to continue in this strained fashion, as the village’s recent expansion of their mines has unearthed yet another…”_

 

‘Another what?’ was a question left unanswered as a harsh desert wind swept over the balcony of Figaro palace. Its primal roar drowned out the two reporters in quick order. The pair fizzled into static, their dismal news completely awash in the planet’s play. They weren’t advisors of the castle. In fact, they weren’t even really _there_ at all—disembodied voices, transmitted from some distant place beyond the eastern mountains. South Figaro most likely. Most of the world’s broadcasts came out of the bustling ports at South Figaro…not that there were many outside the desert who had the equipment to receive them… But now their signals were mere putty in the hands of nature. _Armonia’s_ gales mocked mankind for their pitiful attempt at progress.

A soft voice sighed along with the breeze as it swept about her feet, toying with skirts and tousling her cascade of golden hair. A hand, tanned by many years in the desert sun, reached backwards toward the strange, polished device out of which the monotonous news reports were issuing. With the turn of a dial, their suspicions and speculations were immediately silenced. Coal. Industry. Vector. Monsters. The stories scarcely ever changed from day to day, and they had lost their novelty long ago—much like the diplomats who visited the castle with the same droll information.

The advent of the radio was now some fifty years past, and the last noteworthy thing it had ever broadcast was the completion of Vector’s iron palace over a decade before. Reports of the young nation’s ambition had filled the airwaves ever since. There was never anything more to say about them. No wars. No battles. Just:

ever

more

troops.

There would be time for that later, the young woman upon the balcony thought to herself as she stepped away from her covered overhang and out into the glittering sunlight. Right now, there were more important things calling for her attention. The heat of the day was full and radiant at this mid-afternoon hour. Like a child prankster, it lurked outside the confines of the Figaroni villages and the mighty castle, beating its rays mercilessly down upon the heads of any who were brave enough to venture out of doors. Long fingers, as tanned as the hands, wrapped themselves around white stone railings that were remarkably cool to the touch. Their owner smiled—the first true smile she had enjoyed the entire day. Lazily, she leaned her head back, long curls spilling into the wind, and closed her eyes. From the dust, to the sun, to the whispering currents all around her, the blushing blonde was sure to savour every part of her glorious surround.

Yes. This was much more interesting than foreign news reports.

People abroad were often smitten with the pointed eccentricity that was this, the Kingdom of Figaro. They talked about it in bars and on front porches; they said they knew not how an entire nation could bear to live in the middle of a desert. A hot. Dry. Sweltering. Desert. Even if one could find water and vegetation enough to sustain a population, how in the world could they stand the scalding temperatures? Christiel Figaro, the woman atop the high palace balcony, chuckled quietly to herself. She had felt that way once; long ago, when she had set out on this journey. She had felt that way when she left her tiny town to seek some semblance of destiny—had been guilty of those self-same questions about the rest of her countrymen, the Figaroni proper.

She, a child with no past who had seen the sun only through the window of a south Kohlingen monastery; she, a local freak who made vegetation spring up in her wake, regardless of the soil quality; she, a girl who sold flowers on the street corner… She, who the townspeople had called the descendent of the traitorous magi…

Christiel could scarcely have imagined then that ‘destiny’ would bring her to a place such as this: in the midst of the desert, looking over her castle, politics and pleasantries abuzz in her head. She could not have pictured the beauty of this place, and why it was the most ingenious choice in the world for a mighty kingdom. She could never have fancied the dryness of the air—the way it made such heat feel like an enveloping hug rather than burning burden.

The desert was a place of unparalleled beauty, where the power of the planet herself was laid bare.

It was a sacred place.  

The swoosh of the balcony’s heavy curtains rustled from somewhere behind the young woman, but she paid it no mind. She did not turn her face from the sun. Clicking footfalls paused only briefly by the silenced radio just beneath the overhang. The once-common girl smiled again—the second time that day—but with a quiet manner conditioned into her by years at court, she did nothing to break her delicate composure. Christiel knew, without need to look, just who was approaching. Alas, she thought whimsically, those footfalls would soon usher her return to reality—back to the news reports and away from the wind and the blazing sunshine. But still…she could not hide her joy at their coming.

A pair of strong, deeply tanned arms wrapped tightly around the woman. Sinking slowly, they came to rest lightly upon the crest of her hips. “Guess who?” a deep, rumbling voice whispered in her ear. Whiskers tickled at her neck as the speaker brushed a kiss over tender flesh.

“Hmmm,” she hummed back in mock contemplation, giggling both at the sensation and at the pleasure of teasing her companion. “Is it _Don Juan_? Or _Kain_ _of Baron_? Are you here to take me away?” Her words were teasing, ringing with the innocence of a starry-eyed village maiden; a playful echo of the child she had once been.

The large man at her rear responded with a low laugh that sounded like distant thunder. “Folklore and children’s’ tales,” he purred, squeezing his bride even more tightly. He drew their spooned bodies until there was scarcely a sliver of air between them. “I assume you fancy yourself _Lady Rosa_ in this metaphor?”

Hands slid from their perch. They caressed over territory they would never have dared to find in court, and Christiel found herself suddenly without the breath to answer. Her pulse quickened. They were terribly close now, and the sun was still beaming down all around. With skin hot and achingly sensitive beneath the thin cloth of her skirts, she could feel every curve and inlet of this broad man’s body. Walls of hard muscle pressed up against her back. Strong thighs braced her legs on either side. Metal buckles marked the belt that held up his scabbard and hid his long golden sword. The cool touch of armoured shoulders sent goose pimples across sun-kissed skin. He was wearing no codpiece, and soft tissues brushed between their entwined bodies. Touching. Bumping. Caressing. Sliding past one another. Just enough to tease, never enough to satisfy. A shiver completely at odds with the weather shot up the blonde’s spine, bidding her tremble from toe to head. The thought. The closeness. The memory of summer nights… The heat of the desert suddenly seemed twice as intense; it twisted into a burning knot beneath the girl’s breastbone, where she thought her heart should have been. Her breath hitched, bosom heaving. Despite her careful training by the palace maids, Christiel felt a crown of sweat kiss her brow.

Her companion, still unseen, laughed more deeply. “Ah, _cara mio,_ ” he sighed, lightly kissing his lady’s hair as she struggled to recover her queenly façade, “Promise me you’ll never lose your humour.”

“Foreign words!” the young woman teased, still breathing heavily even as adventurous hands retreated some. She shook her head like a wild chocobo until her partner’s whiskers were tangled in her mess of curls. He reflexively withdrew, hugging arms loosening ever slightly, and Queen Christiel at last whirled around to face her much-welcome intruder. “You know I’m just a country girl, Stuart. I speak simple Common, not any of your fancy ‘ _Ancient Figaroni’_ tongue.”

‘Stuart’, the tall, tanned, broad-shouldered king of Figaro Castle merely bowed his head and kissed his wife chastely on her rosy lips. “You know what it means, though,” he muttered through a mouthful of soft skin as he extended his exploration down her jawline. Reflexively, the lady in white shuddered again, much to her companion’s delight. “But whatever are you doing out here in the sun?” he asked quietly as he placed one final kiss upon her slender throat, just above its flickering pulse point.

“I like the sun,” Christiel answered simply—in part because it was true, but primarily because her brain was suddenly too awash with sensations to think of anything more clever. “It was so hard to come by in my youth.” She let her head drop down upon her lover’s chest, golden fringe grazing the top of his leather-bound plate. There, she gasped for breath, beating down the impulse to kiss him back—to continue this intimate encounter right here on the balcony, and to hell with whatever sentry might be watching below!

“I know you do, love,” Stuart’s rolling voice whispered in reply. “But don’t you think there’s a time and place for you to relax, and take it easy? This isn’t the ideal time of year for someone of your condition…” as he spoke, his hands slinked their way around his bride’s back, giving her thighs a firm caress as they passed (Christiel felt her entire body tighten). His touch came to a rest just below the crest of her hips, where it ran lovingly across a swollen abdomen, stroking it through folds of thin fabric.

Christiel sighed her approval, rubbing her face more and more deeply into layers of leather as calloused fingers massaged her aching belly. Lazily, she wondered how much blackmail a good foot-rub would cost her… “I like the sun,” she repeated again in answer to her husband’s question, “it’s never done me harm before.”

Stuart knelt down, placing a single kiss atop her protruding tummy. The linen was so thin that she could feel the sweet moisture of his lips even through the cloth. “If you don’t stop to spend some time inside of doors,” he chuckled, “then these two are going to come out in a few months already sporting perfect tans.”

Christiel gave him a playful swat on the head for his comment, tousling layers of richly brown hair. Nonetheless, she let the towering man take her hand as he returned to his feet and dragged her back beneath the shelter of the balcony overhang. Away from her precious sun. Away from the luscious wind. The Queen of Figaro sighed, but her sorrow was only half-hearted as yet another soft kiss graced her lips.

It tasted of red wine and courtly fineries.

Of strong generations of Figaroni heroes.

And of something else that was uniquely… Stuart.

She wasn’t even certain, a moment later, how she had come to be sitting once again beside her muted radio.

“You tricked me, you seducer!” Christiel laughed lightly as her husband settled down in the cushioned chair beside her. “Perhaps you really are the devious _Kain Highwind_ in disguise!”

“But I would never betray you, fair lady!” Stuart rumbled affectionately in return. His hands had fallen atop a pile of colourful books that the queen had stacked haphazardly on the ground, beside the radio table. With a lazy curiosity, he took the top volume in his hands and thumbed through its glossy pages. “Yet more children’s stories,” he murmured with amusement as he flipped past pastel pictures of dragoons and dark lords, monsters and mages. “It’s no wonder you see metaphors everywhere today, my dear. But don’t you think yourself a bit old for fairy tales?”

“They aren’t for me, silly,” Christiel giggled, mock-scolding as her partner continued to smile at Cecil and Kain’s magical misadventures. The young blonde sighed again, this time more genuinely. It was enough to drag the king out of his reading of Sage Sakaguchi’s classic epic. Absentmindedly, she rubbed her enormously-pregnant belly as she whispered her reply: “I have to remember all those old bedtime stories so I can tell them to these two.”

Stuart’s own smile twitched, threatening to go the way of his wife’s. He did not give into the impulse, however, and instead wrapped his calloused hands over their daintier counterparts. “Given the current state of the world, don’t you think perhaps we should be giving them tales out of our own history? …The War of the Magi?”

Christiel shifted uncomfortably in her seat, bouncing her swollen abdomen. “’Current events’? I assume that was the topic of discussion at court today,” she murmured, refusing to meet her husband’s eyes. “More of these rumours? City-states of the south researching magic? The so-called Second War of the Magi in the works?”

“ _Vector_ researching magic specifically,” Stuart whispered, brow furrowing. Concerned by the sudden darkness of his tone, the pretty blonde beside him broke her determined stare-down with her toes. She studied his face as he shook his head dismally. There were dark circles beneath his shining blue eyes; there were lines across his still-youthful flesh that had not existed mere days before. “What do you make of it, Christie?” the King asked. “Do you believe the old tales? That magic once came to our peaceful planet? That it sparked greed among men, and a lust for power the world over? That it, with its mutinous might, created an entire second wing of the human race: the—”

“The Espers?” Christiel suddenly chuckled, startling her husband before he could finish his sad mantra. “The mythic phantom beasts, our sister species? And of course, the Magi themselves as the great bridge between us?” She giggled again, and for his own part, Stuart hung his head, a rich flush creeping across his cheeks.

“Yes, _that_ ,” he murmured, bashful at his Queen’s surprising amusement. As he sighed dismally to his knees, Christiel bit down on her tongue, forcing her moment of mirth to subside. Stuart didn’t deserve to be mocked—most especially when he was so serious about all of this. His sunken eyes. His lined face. The very desperation of his hug when he had first come here to find her. Though the man’s words sounded as if they could have come from one of her books of nursery rhymes, it was clear that he took their implications far more gravely. _Cecil Harvey_ and his _Final Fantasy_ were works of fiction, handed down by generations from a time before the modern comforts of the world. But the War of the Magi, for the scattered peoples of _Armonia_ , was more than a fairy tale. For many, it was fact: an ancient history long forgotten to time.

Christiel sighed—a sigh that fell immediately into the wind, as it kicked up teasingly around her ankles. Her skirts. Her hair. Once again, golden locks were tossed asunder, casting moments of fleeting blindness upon the pretty brown eyes that lay beneath them. For an instant, she lost sight of Stuart and his stress-strained face. Dumb fingers reached out to him and, finding his calloused hand, gripped him ever tighter. Soft skin lightly massaged a palm that felt more like aged leather.  “I don’t know…” she whispered. It was all she could say.

Magic. Vector. The War of the Magi. A part of the young queen—the rational part; the part that had lifted her up off the streets and carried her all the way to this pleasant life, this warm sun, this kindly lover… Part of her wanted to dismiss these things as nonsense. Laugh. Chuckle. Be witty. So terribly, she wanted to laugh, to make a jest of all this. It was ridiculous! Phantom beasts, magic monsters.

And yet…

And yet.

Wordlessly, the blonde grabbed hold of her rebellious hair and tossed it out of her face. Suddenly, she was in no mood for its romanticism—its frivolity. Suddenly, the future seemed much graver, more foreboding. Glancing away from her partner, Christiel—the Queen of Figaro, the pauper turned princess, the famed decedent of the Magi—glanced back out at the horizon. Moments ago, she had stood there, basking in the sunlight. Moments ago, she had marvelled in the heat and the beauty and the splendour of the day. But now, somehow, as if by magic, the sky was darkening. The clear, peak-blue that had rained above was now stained with a faint spattering of pink and violet in anticipation of the end of day. It drained the heavens of their colour, leaving them a murky, ill-defined, and watery hue.

 

The sun would set soon.

Perhaps within the hour.

When had it become so late? When had their time together so quickly run out?

It had seemed like the blazing fire of their bliss would have lasted forever…

 

Now, the day felt mysteriously colder. Now, the wind stung at her skin wherever it was exposed. Christiel shuddered, unable to stop herself. From somewhere behind, strong hands gripped her shoulders. A garment of some soft silken fabric was draped lovingly about her arms. She felt him: felt Stuart, felt the gesture, felt his warmth radiate against her… But though his fingers stroked her sides, though his body was pressed closely against his bride’s, she was left apart from him.

 

 

His warmth could not reach her, could not rekindle life to the terrible chill that had crept into the young woman’s flesh.

 

Though his cape draped her shoulders, its insulating touch felt cold and frozen as she enshrouded herself in its clasp.

 

The sun was setting on the desert. The end of the day. The end of warmth, and light. The end of its sparkling splendour, which had shone so long—and yet, so briefly—on the castle Figaro.

 

 

“Don’t worry,” she heard Stuart whisper beneath the growing gales. His voice could have been miles away… “Don’t worry yourself about any of this. Rest. Take heart. There will be time for these petty concerns after the twins are born.”

Chritiel felt her body nod in response: her head shaking slightly, her eyes staring dazedly towards the west. “I don’t know…” was all she could mutter in reply. “I just…don’t know…”

……..

_M agic came. _

_I t fell from the heavens with a crash that shook the core of the pretty blue planet and wrest its continents asunder. It almost destroyed the world and all that lived upon it. And when the smoke cleared, those that had been struck by the magic—the people and the animals alike—were transformed. They became the Espers, a new magical race. They were powerful, like the dragons and the monsters of the earth. The people called them the phantom beasts, and for many years, there was unrest upon the surface of the world. _

_B ut through they were cold of heart, the Espers were wise. To certain worthy humans, they gifted their powers, creating the Magi. And the Magi therefore, as humans themselves, became emissaries between the two races. They negotiated for peace, and all was well. _

_B ut man is a greedy monster, and peace was not destined to last. _

_A s time wore on, the people grew jealous of the Espers and their magic. They wished to be like Magi themselves and wield great mystical powers. With guns and weapons of the most advanced nature, they advanced upon the Espers and took them captive. They drained them of their magical power and sought to gift it unto themselves. But the Espers fought back, and before anyone knew it, the entire world had been dragged into the most brutal of wars…_

** The War of the Magi. **

…

[‘ _Il Mondo di Armonia’_ , 5:02pm, 9 January (Capricorn), 999AF (1BR). Figaro Castle.]

Edgar was looking for an irregularly-shaped finger sandwich.

Outside the heavy stone walls of Figaro castle, the wind was howling much as it had 27 years ago, not that the current king—or indeed, most of his remaining advisors—could remember those days. Long had it been since the time of frivolity and lazy afternoons. Long, since the sounds of quiet romance had been a momentary escape from the stressors of the changing world. Long, since the threats to man and country could be called simple ‘concerns’, and not ‘realties’. The name ‘Christiel’ had not echoed within these ancient halls for almost three decades.

Back to the matter at hand: the curiosity of the finger sandwiches.

Ever since Edgar’s youth, life had progressed a certain way in his fortress home. Things had not been perfect—they had been far from perfect. He’d never known his mother. The woman had perished, mysteriously: an unforeseen complication of her own labour. He’d had drama with his twin brother. The boy had been notoriously sickly: a genetic revenge on an isolated lineage. His father, for as long as he could remember, had looked tired and worn.

Stuart Figaro—the _late_ Stuart Figaro—Edgar had seen, known, followed like a duckling. He had been a good king. A fair king. A…short-lived king.

But if it was a question of _perfection…_

 The man had spent all day at court, and all night shut alone in his room. Their room. The one he had presumably once shared with his queen. His dead queen. Edgar and Sabin’s mother. The lady whom he had loved.

Stuart had adored his sons and had showered them with affection. He had read them bedtime stories from Sakaguchi’s epic fantasy. …But there had always been a glimmer of sadness in his eyes as he spoke the words from brightly-colored pages… There was something ever distant: when he embraced his children, when he taught them of the hunt. He’d heard tales of woe and slaughter—tales that the southern couriers had brought abundantly, like silk for trade—and had never flinched. Distance. Melancholy. It was as if some part of the man had been very far away. The king of the most sophisticated castle in the modern world… and yet, each time he had looked upon Figaro’s mechanical prowess, he had dolefully whispered: “If only…”

And then he had died, which settled _that_ whole affair nice and messily.

Everyone had died back then, Edgar thought to himself as he stared blankly at the table in front of him. As he avoided the shouting of the men around him. He could count them all on one hand:

 

1)      Figaro had once been graced by a beautiful queen: dead.

 

2)      It had once been home to a mighty king, who had combated the Empire: also dead.

 

3)      When Edgar was young, he had had a distant cousin with whom he had become deeply infatuated. She had called him charmless and naïve—she was also dead.

 

4)      His lover had had her own lover, a valiant knight. He was dead. And that loss was a damn shame… romantic tensions aside.

 

Dead, dead, dead.

Everyone was dead.

Edgar himself would probably be dead before his time as well, if affairs kept up the way they had, of late. The world was heading towards an enormous downward spiral, and kissing Imperial babies in hopes of staving of the slaughter was doing no wonders for his blood pressure. Young though he was, the young king sometimes entertained himself by wondering which would first befall him: the throes of middle age, or his inevitable fatal stroke. Probably the latter. Then again, that wasn’t how people died in the Castle Figaro.

 

They died of bloody murder!

Huzzah!

 

When Edgar was young, he had had an uncle, his father’s brother. His uncle had sold his entire family up for slaughter by the Gestahlian Empire. Edgar hadn’t been sorry about _that_ bastard’s death, since it was _his_ fault that the castle now echoed so emptily. It was _his_ fault that a teenage boy had been forced to the throne of an endangered nation. It was _his_ fault that Sabin…

Things had never been perfect—far from it. But despite the stirring of chaos within, there castle Figaro (much like her king) had never looked out upon the world with anything less than a gleaming smile. Yes, everything is fine here.

Look at our prosperity! Look at our technology! Look at our young and virile ruler!

This was what the mighty fortress whispered out-of-doors. No one ever need know of the cancer within…

There had always been little things around the palace that had given the illusion of normality—of perfection. Their lives, their lineage, their politics could never be perfect, so the staff made it where they could. The sheets on all the beds were ever the image of neat and tidy. If left unkempt, they inevitably remade themselves whilst their owner was away—occasionally (and in Edgar’s case most especially) when they were still drawing up a bath. Food and drink was always abundant and delectable. Halls were neatly swept; tapestries and suits of armour were always dust-free and shining. In the library, there was never a single book out of place.

If a young maid found her way into the king’s bedchambers, then she too was cared for, compensated, and cleared away by morning.

There were no scandals in Figaro. Not anymore.

There was never anything amiss. Not anymore.

Ever the illusion of tidiness. Ever the façade of perfection.

There was no war. The world wasn’t doomed. They were proud allies of the Empire. Edgar wasn’t heartbroken, or half-destroyed from stress and tension. He didn’t lie awake lonely and frightened every other night. When Prioress Francesca was called to her king’s quarters, it was to give otherworldly wisdom, not to hold him while he cried upon the floor…

Of course. Naturally. Because all was well in Castle Figaro. That was how it had to be.

 

And then there were these finger sandwiches.

 

At every meeting of the court, they appeared without fail. At every gathering of nobles and newsmen, they were set out upon tables and trays. At every secret meeting of the king and his advisors—the places where the real decisions were made—the damned things were still ever-present and ever-triangular! It was almost maddening, the illusory precision of the damned things! Every one identical. Every one stacked neatly, not a pickle out of place. _Every_ _one_ a perfect right triangle—and gods knew Edgar had checked! Hell, he’d even once pulled out a protractor, right there on the meeting table! Perfect. Always! 90 degrees on one side, 45 on each of the others.

Privately, the young king wondered if there was some poor soul hiding in the back of the kitchens whose job it was to make geometrically-flawless sandwiches every day…

“My liege?” a stern, yet timidly inquisitive voice perked up at Edgar’s right hand, breaking his reverie. He seemed huffy. “Are you even listening?”

Edgar gave his impossibly-perfect finger food one last poke on its 45-degree corner, and made a point to munch on it absentmindedly whilst his circle of anxious advisors stared. “Of course not,” he replied in a tone that walked the line between whimsically lazy and gravely serious. The voice on his right, that of the castle chancellor, let out a heavy sigh of exasperation. Edgar smirked cheekily, content at having caused a moment of disruption amongst their formal, feigning air. Happily, he munched at his tiny sandwich again, finishing the thing in whole and forever banishing its perfect angles from his presence. “I never listen when you gents are flirting around the subject,” he continued, casting blazing blue eyes across the series of trepid men in attendance. There were no women in the king’s council. There needed to be women in the king’s council. Ladies were so lovely to look at, most especially at the worst of times. With a purposeful mask of frivolity, Edgar reached across and grabbed another sandwich as he listened to his companions shift uncomfortably in their seats.

The Empire. Narshé. The coming war. These men rarely had anything new to say on those topics, but they wanted to fret about them nonetheless. It was plain as the strain on their faces.

Pitying them, Edgar Figaro, the young ruler of his kingdom, was just about to open his mouth to say something more to-the-point. Then, suddenly, he paused. And blinked. Slowly, a small, genuine smile crept across his face. Completely forgetting the setting around him, the blond doubled over and fished around in the pockets of his robes. His ponytail of long golden hair almost untied itself with the ferocity of his bumbling. Though Edgar knew it not, the fair maiden from whom he inherited those flowing locks would have approved of his antics. From out of the depths, he drew a rather worn protractor and, ignoring the looks of horror from his court, set it gleefully to the widest angle of neatly-cut bread. He squinted. He stuck out his tongue. And, with a woop and a laugh ill-befitting a man of his position, Edgar turned back to his countrymen.

“Eighty-three degrees,” he declared. A frighteningly giddy grin spread across his sun-tanned face.

“M-my liege?” the chancellor stuttered carefully. He flinched as his king let out a maniacal laugh.

“Eighty-three, man!” Edgar laughed again, utterly beside himself. “Eighty-three! Not ninety! Not flawless. Not perfect!”

“Wh-whatever does it mean?” the other stuttered, looking as though he might soon bolt towards the door, fearing his ruler had perhaps succumbed to that stroke he had mentioned earlier.

Biting his tongue, Edgar forced himself to contain his giggles, but could do nothing for the devious smile upon his face. “I don’t know,” he admitted with a final chuckle. “Maybe it means nothing. Maybe it means everything…”

The bursting blond let himself trail away, unaware for a moment of the exasperation of his company. 83 degrees. 83, not 90. It was a chink in the armour. I was a hole in their massive guarding wall. It was a change from the ordinary… and maybe it meant the world…

“Now, gentlemen,” Edgar snapped suddenly, with surprising curtness. So startling was his change of mood that all in attendance nearly jumped out of their skins. Edgar paid them no mind. Now was the time for action. Now was the time, at last, to treat things seriously. The walls were tumbling down… With a twinkle in his eye, the King of Figaro at last gave his full attention to the court.

“Tell me about this Esper in Narshé.”

...................................

Author Note: 

Just a note of interest: I have transcriptions of both the Final Fantasy V Jump interviews and a hard copy of the Settei Shiryo Hen at my disposal now and have translated both myself. So I will be drawing on them as additional canonical sources from here on out. Though this info on the twins' back-story most famously comes from a 'non-canonical' dojinshi written by the characters' creator, it was also explicitly mentioned/ outlined in the V Jump interviews, and it is from there that I draw it. This can be verified if necessary. 


End file.
